CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.
STORM AND CALM
Monica sat with her face buried in her hands, her whole frame quivering with emotion. Those last words of her husband’s smote her almost like a blow. She deserved them, no doubt; yet they were cruel, coming like that. He could not have spoken so if he loved her. He would not stand coldly aloof whilst she suffered, if he held her really dear. And yet, once he had almost seemed to love her, till she had alienated him by her pride and self-will. It was just, she admitted, yet, oh! it was very hard!
She sat, crushed and confounded, for a time, and it was only by a great effort that she spoke at all.
“I did not know, Randolph; I did not know. You should have told me before.”
“I believed you did know. You told me that you did.”
“Not that. Did you think I could know that and treat him as a friend? Oh, Randolph! how could you? You ought to have told me before.”
“Perhaps I ought,” he said. “But remember, Monica, I spoke out very plainly, and still you insisted that he was, and should continue to be, your friend – your repentant friend.”
Monica raised her eyes to her husband’s face, full of a sort of mute reproach. She felt that she merited the rebuke – that he might have said much more without being really harsh – and yet it was very hard, in this hour of their re-union, to have to hear, from lips that had never uttered till then anything but words of gentleness and love, these reproofs and strictures on her conduct. She saw that he was moved: that there was a repressed agitation and excitement in his whole manner; but she could not guess how deeply he had been roused and stirred by the careless jests he had heard passed that day, nor how burning an indignation he felt towards the man who had plotted to ruin his happiness.
“You should not have left me, Randolph,” said Monica, “if you could not trust me.”
He went up to her quietly, and took her hands. She stood up, looking straight into his eyes.
“I did trust you – I do trust you,” he answered, with subdued impetuosity. “Can I look into your face and harbour one doubt of your goodness and truth? I trust you implicitly; it is your judgment, not your heart, that has been at fault.”
She looked up gratefully, and drew one step nearer.
“And now that you have come back, all will be right again,” she said. “Randolph, I will never speak to that man again.”
His face was stern; it wore a look she did not understand.
“I am not sure of that,” he answered, speaking with peculiar incisiveness. “It may be best that you should speak to him again.”
She looked up, bewildered.
“Randolph, why do you say that? Do you think that, after all, he has repented?”
Randolph’s face expressed an unutterable scorn. She read the meaning of that glance, and answered it as if it had been expressed in words.
“Randolph, do you believe for a moment that I would permit any one to speak ill of you to me? Am I not your wife?”
His face softened as he looked at her, but there was a good deal of sadness there, too.
“I do not believe you would deliberately listen to such words from him; but are not poisoned shafts launched sometimes that strike home and rankle? Has no one ever come between you and me, since the day you gave yourself to me in marriage?”
He saw her hesitation, and a great sadness came into his eyes. How near she was and yet how far! His heart ached for her in her loneliness and isolation, and it ached for himself too.
Monica broke the silence first.
“Randolph,” she said timidly; “no harm has been done to you, really? He cannot hurt you; can he?”
His face was stern as he answered her.
“He will hurt me if he can – through my wife. His threat is still unfulfilled; but he knows where to plant a blow, how to strike in the dark. Yes, Monica, he has hurt me.”
She drew back a pace.
“How?”
“It hurts me to know that idle gossip connects my wife’s name with his – that he has the credit of being a lover, discarded only from motives of policy. I know that there is not a syllable of truth in these reports – that they have been set afloat by his malicious tongue. Nevertheless, they hurt me. They hurt me the more because my wife has given some countenance to such rumours, by permitting a certain amount of intimacy with a man whom her husband will not receive.”
Monica was white to the lips. She understood now, as she had never done before, what Cecilia Bellamy had meant by her flighty speeches a few hours before. They had disgusted and offended her then, now they appeared like absolute insults. Randolph saw the stricken look upon her face, and knew that she was cut to the quick.
“Monica,” he said, more gently, “what has been done can be undone by a little patience and self-control. We need not be afraid of a man like Sir Conrad. I have known him and his ways long. He has tried before to injure me without success. He has tried in a more subtle way this time; yet again I say, most emphatically, that he has failed.”
But Monica hardly heard. She was torn by the tumult of her shame and distress.
“Randolph!” she exclaimed, stretching out her hands towards him: “Randolph, take me home! oh! take me home, out of this cruel, cruel, wicked world! I cannot live here. It kills me; it stifles the very life out of me! I am so miserable, so desolate here! It is all so hard, and so terrible! Take me home! Ah! I was happy once!”
“I will take you to Trevlyn, Monica, believe me, as soon as ever I can; but it cannot be just yet. Shall I tell you why?”
She recoiled from him once more, putting up her hand with that instinctive gesture of distress.
“You are very cruel to me Randolph,” she said, with the sharpness of keen misery in her voice.
He stood quite still, looking at her, and then continued in the same quiet way:
“Shall I tell you why? I cannot take you away until we have been seen together as before. I shall go with you to some of those houses you have visited without me. We must be seen riding and driving, and going about as if nothing whatever had occurred during my absence. If we meet Fitzgerald, there must be nothing in your manner or in mine to indicate that he is otherwise than absolutely indifferent to us. I dare say he will put himself in your way. He would like to force upon me the part of the jealous, distrustful husband, but it is a rôle I decline to play at his bidding. I am not jealous, nor am I distrustful, and he and all the world shall see that this is so. If I take you away now, Monica, I shall give occasion for people to say that I am afraid to trust my wife in any place where she may meet Fitzgerald. Let us stay where we are, and ignore the foolish rumours he has circulated, and we shall soon see them drop into deserved oblivion.”
“Randolph, I cannot! I cannot!” cried Monica, who was now overwrought and agitated to the verge of exhaustion; “I cannot stay here. I cannot go amongst those who have dared to say such things, to believe such things of me. What does it matter what they think, when we are far away? Take me back to Trevlyn, and let us forget it all. Let me go, if only for a week. I have never asked you anything before. Oh! Randolph, do not be so hard! Say that you will take me home!”
“If I loved you less, Monica,” he answered, in a very low, gentle tone, “I should say yes. As it is, I say no. I cannot take you to Trevlyn yet.”
She turned away then, and left him without a word, passing slowly through the brilliantly-lighted room, and up the wide staircase. Randolph sat down and rested his head upon his hand, and a long-drawn sigh rose up from the very depths of his heart. This interview had tried him quite as much as it had done Monica – possibly even more.
“Perhaps, after all, Fitzgerald has revenged himself,” he muttered, “though not in a way he anticipated. Ah, Monica! my fair young wife, why cannot you trust me a little more?”
Monica trusted him far more than he knew. It was not in anger that she had left him. In the depth of her heart she believed that he had judged wisely and well; it was only the wave of home-sickness sweeping over her that had urged her to such passionate pleading. And then his strong, inflexible firmness gave her a curious sense of rest and confidence. She herself was so torn and rent by conflicting emotions, by bewilderment and uncertainty, that his resolute determination and singleness of purpose were as a rock and tower of defence. She had called him cruel in the keen disappointment of the moment, but she knew he was not really so. Home-sick, aching for Trevlyn as she was – irrepressibly as she shrank from the idea of facing those to whom she had given cause to say that she did not love her husband, she felt that his decision was right. It might be hard, but it was necessary, and she would go through her part unflinchingly for his sake. It was the least that she could do to make amends for the unconscious wrong she had done him.
She felt humbled to the very dust, utterly distrustful of herself, and quite unworthy of the gentleness and forbearance her husband showed towards her. How much he must be disappointed in her! How hard he must feel it to have married her out of kindness, and to be treated thus!
She was very quiet and submissive during the days that followed, doing everything he suggested, studying in all things to please him, and to make up for the past. In society she was more bright and less silent than she had been heretofore. She was determined not to appear unhappy. No one should in future have cause to say that her present life was not congenial to her. Certainly, if anyone took the trouble to watch her now, it would easily be seen that she was no longer indifferent to her husband. Her eyes often followed him about when he was absent from her side. She always seemed to know where he was, and to turn to him with a sort of instinctive welcome when he came back to her. This clinging to him was quite unconscious, the natural result of her confidence in his strength and protecting care; but it was visible to one pair of keenly jealous eyes, and Conrad Fitzgerald, when he occasionally found himself in company with Randolph and his wife, watched with a sense of baffled malevolence the failure of his carefully-planned scheme.
People began to talk now of the devotion of Mr. Trevlyn and Lady Monica with as much readiness and carelessness as they had done about their visible estrangement. It takes very little to set idle tongues wagging, and every one admired the bride and liked the bridegroom, so that the good opinion of the world was not difficult to regain.
But Monica’s peace of mind was less easily recovered. At home she was grave and sad, and he thought her cold; and the full and entire reconciliation – of which, indeed, at that time she would have felt quite unworthy – was not to be yet. Each was conscious of deep love on his or her own side, but could not read the heart of the other, and feared to break the existing calm by any attempt to ruffle the surface of the waters.
They were not very much alone, for Lord Haddon and his sister spent many evenings with them when they were not otherwise engaged, and the intimacy between the two houses increased rapidly.
Monica had never again alluded to the prospective return to Trevlyn – the half-promise made by Randolph to take her back soon. She did not know what “soon” might mean, and she did not ask. She had grown content now to leave that question in his hands.
Once, when in the after-dinner twilight, she had been talking to Beatrice of her old home, the latter said, with eager vehemence:
“How you must long to see it again! How you must ache to be out of this tumult, and back with your beloved sea and cliffs and pine-woods! Don’t you hate our noisy, busy London? Don’t you pine to go back?”
Monica was silent, pondering, as it seemed. She was thinking deeply. When she answered out of the fulness of her heart, her words startled even herself.
“I don’t think I do. I missed the quiet and rest at first, but, you see, my husband is here; I do not pine when I have him.”
Beatrice’s eyes grew suddenly wistful. “Ah, no!” she answered. “I can understand that.”
But after a long silence she rallied herself and asked:
“But is he not going to take you back? Do you not want to see your father and brother again?”
“Yes, if Randolph is willing to take me; but it must be as he likes.”
“He will like what will please you best.”
Monica smiled a little.
“No; he will like what is best, and I shall like it too.”
Beatrice studied her face intently.
“Do you know, Monica, that you have changed since I saw you first?”
Monica passed her hand across her brow. What a long time it seemed since that first meeting in the park!
“Have I?”
“Yes. Do you know I used to have a silly fancy that you did not much care for Randolph? It was absurd and impertinent, I know; but Haddon had brought such a strange account of your sudden wedding, called you the ‘snow bride,’ and had somehow got an idea that it had all been rather cold and sad – forgetting, of course, that the sadness was on account of your father’s health. I suppose I got a preconceived idea; and do you know, when first I knew you I used to think of you as the ‘snow-bride,’ and fancy you very cold to everyone – especially to Randolph; and now that I see more of you and know you better, it is just as plain that you love him with all your heart and soul.”
Monica sat quite still in the darkness, turning about the ring upon her finger – the pledge of his wedded love. She was startled at hearing put into plain words the secret thought treasured deep down in her heart, but seldom looked into or analysed. Had it come to that? Did she indeed love him thus? Was that the reason she yielded up herself and her future so trustfully and willingly to him? – the reason that she no longer yearned after Trevlyn as home, so long as he was at her side? Yes, that was surely it. Beatrice had spoken no more than the truth in what she said. She did love her husband heart and soul; but did he love her too? There lay the sting – she had proved unworthy of him: he must know it and feel it. She had been near to winning his heart; but alas! she had not won it – and now, now perhaps it was too late. And yet the full truth was like a ray of sunshine in her heart. Might she not yet win his love by the depth and tenderness of her own? Something deep down within her said that the land of promise lay, after all, not so very far away.
CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH.
A SUMMONS TO TREVLYN
“Randolph! Randolph! Why did you not take me home when I begged so hard to go? It was cruel! cruel! And now it is too late!”
This irrepressible cry of anguish burst from Monica in the first moments of a terrible, overmastering grief. An open telegram in Randolph’s hand announced the sudden death of Lord Trevlyn. He had just broken to his wife, with as much gentleness as he could, the news of this crushing sorrow. It was hardly unnatural that she should remember, in such a moment, how eloquently she had pleaded a few weeks back to be taken home to Trevlyn, yet she repented the words before they had passed her lips, for she saw they had hurt her husband.
He was deeply grieved for her, his heart yearned over her, but his words were few.
“Can you be ready to start, Monica, by the noon express?”
She bent her head in a silent assent, and moved away as one who walks in a dream.
“Poor child!” he said softly, “poor child! If only my love could make up to you for what you have lost; but alas! that is not what you want.”
It was a strange, sad, silent journey, almost as sad as the one in which Randolph had brought his bride to London. He was taking her back at last to her childhood’s home. Was he any nearer to her innermost self than he had been that day, now nearly three months ago?
He was hopeful that he had made an advance, and yet this sudden recall to Trevlyn disconcerted him. Apart from the question of the earl’s death, there was another trouble, he believed, hanging over Monica’s future. Tom Pendrill had been profiting by her absence to “experiment,” as she would have called it, upon Arthur, with results that had surprised even him, though he had always believed the case curable if properly treated. Randolph had had nothing to do directly with the matter, but Tom had written lately, asking him to find out the best authorities on spinal injuries, and get some one or two specialists to come and have a look at the boy. This Randolph had done at his own expense, and with the result, as he had heard a few days back, that Arthur was to be sent abroad for a year, to be under a German doctor, whose cures of similar cases had been bringing him into marked repute.
Monica had been, by Arthur’s special wish, kept in ignorance of everything. He was eagerly anxious, even at the cost of considerable suffering, to submit to the prescribed treatment, feeling how much good he had already received from Tom’s more severe remedies; but he knew how Monica shrank from the idea of anything that could give him pain, how terrible she would consider the idea of parting, how vehemently she would struggle to thwart the proposed plan. So he had begged that she might be kept in ignorance till all was finally settled. Indeed, he had some idea, not entirely discouraged by Tom, of getting himself quietly removed to Germany in her absence, so that she might be spared all the anxiety, misery, and suspense.
Randolph could hardly have been acquitted of participation in the scheme, the whole cost of which was to fall upon him, and he wondered what Monica might think of his share in it. It had been no doing of his that she had not been told from the first. He had urged upon the others the unfairness of keeping her in the dark; but Arthur’s vehement wish for secrecy had won the day, and he had held his peace until he should be permitted to speak.
And now, what would happen? What was likely to be the result upon Monica of the inevitable disclosure? Would it not seem to her as if the first act of her husband, on succeeding to the family estate, was to banish from it the one being for whom she had so often bespoken his protection and brotherly care? Might she not fancy that he was in some way the originator of the scheme? Might she not be acute enough to see that but for him it never could have been carried out, owing to lack of necessary funds? Her father might have approved it, but he could not have forwarded it as Randolph was able to do. Might it not seem to her that he was trying to rid himself of an unwelcome burden, and to isolate his wife from all whom she loved best? He could not forget some of the words she had spoken not very long after their marriage. Practically those words had been rescinded by what had followed, but that could hardly be so in this case. Monica’s heart clung round Arthur with a passionate, yearning tenderness, that was one of the main-springs of her existence. What would she say to those who had banded together to take the boy from her?
Randolph’s pre-occupation and gravity were not lost upon Monica, but she had no clue to their real cause. She felt that there was something in it of which she was ignorant, and there was a sort of sadness and constraint even in the suspicion of such a thing. She was unnerved and miserable, and, although, she well knew she had not merited her husband’s full confidence, it hurt her keenly to feel that it was withheld from her.
Evening came on, a wild, melancholy stormy evening – is there anything more sad and dreary than a midsummer storm? It does not come with the wild, resistless might of a winter tempest, sweeping triumphantly along, carrying all before it in the exuberance of its power. It is a sad, subdued, moaning creature, full of eerie sounds of wailing and regret, not wrapped in darkness, but cloaked in misty twilight, grey and ghostlike – a pale, sorrowful, mysterious thing, that seems to know itself altogether out of place, and is haunted by its own melancholy and dreariness.
It was in the fast waning light of such a summer’s evening that the portals of Trevlyn opened to welcome Monica again.
She was in the old familiar hall that once had been so dear to her – the place whose stern, grim desolation had held such charms for her. Why did she now gaze round her with dilated eyes, a sort of horror growing upon her? Why did she cling to her husband’s arm so closely, as the frowning suits of mail and black carved faces stared at her out of the dusky darkness? Why was her first exclamation one of terror and dismay?
“Randolph! Randolph! This is not Trevlyn! It cannot be Trevlyn! Take me home! ah, take me home!”
There was a catch in her breath; she was shaken with nervous agitation and exhaustion. It seemed to her that this ghostly place was altogether strange and terrible. She did not know that the change was in herself; she thought it was in her surroundings.
“What have they done to it? What have they done to Trevlyn? This is not my old home!”
Randolph took her in his arms, alarmed by her pale looks and manifest disquietude.
“Not know your own old home, Monica?” he said, half gravely, half playfully. “This is the only Trevlyn I have ever known. It is you that have half forgotten, you have grown used to something so very different.”
Monica looked timidly about her, half convinced, yet not relieved of all her haunting fears. What a strange, vast, silent place it was! Voices echoed strangely in it, resounding as it were from remote corners. Footsteps sounded hollow and strange as they came and went along the deserted passages. The staircase stretched upwards into blank darkness, suggesting lurking horrors. All was intensely desolate. Was this truly the home she had loved so well?
But Lady Diana appeared from one direction, and Tom Pendrill from another. Monica dropped her husband’s arm and stood up, her calm, quiet self again.
Food was awaiting the travellers, and as they partook, or tried to partake of it, they heard all such particulars of the earl’s sudden death as there were to hear. He had been as well as usual; indeed, during the past week he had really appeared to gain in strength and activity. He had been out of doors on all fine days, and only yesterday had sat out for quite a long time upon the terrace. He had gone to bed apparently in his usual health; but when his man had gone to him in the morning he found him dead and cold. Tom Pendrill had come over at once, and had remained for the day, relieving Lady Diana from all trouble in looking after things, and thinking what was to be done. It was his opinion that the earl had died in his sleep, without a moment’s premonition. It was syncope of the heart, and was most likely almost instantaneous. There had been no struggle and no pain, as was evident from his restful attitude and expression.
The next days passed sadly and heavily, and the earl was laid to rest amongst his forefathers in the family vault. Lady Diana took her departure, glad, after the strain and sorrow of the past days, to escape from surroundings so gloomy, and to solace herself for her long stay at Trevlyn, by a retreat to an atmosphere more congenial to her.
Monica was glad to see her go. She shrank from her sharp words and sharper looks. She longed to be alone with her husband, that she might try to win back his heart by her own deep love that she hid away so well.
But it was not easy even then to say what was in her heart. Randolph was busy from morning till night over the necessary business that must ensue upon the death of a landed proprietor. Tom Pendrill, who had been much with the earl of late, remained to assist his successor; and both the men seemed to take it for granted that Monica would gladly be spared all business discussions, and devote herself to Arthur, from whom she had so long been separated.
Monica, very gentle and submissive, accepted the office bestowed upon her, and quietly bided her time. Despite the loss she had just sustained, she was not unhappy. How could she be unhappy when she had her husband? when she felt that every day they were drawing nearer and nearer together? She looked wistfully into his face sometimes, and saw the old proud, tender look shining upon her, thrilling her with wonderful gladness. Some little shadow still hung over them, but it was rolling slowly away – the dawn was breaking in its golden glory – the time was drawing very near when each was to know the heart of the other wholly and entirely won.
She never shrank from hearing the new Lord Trevlyn called by his title; but looked at him proudly and tenderly, feeling how well he bore the dignity, how nobly he would fulfil the duties now devolving upon him. She watched him day by day with quiet, loving solicitude. She saw his care for her in each act or plan, knew that he thought for her still, made her his first object, although she had disappointed him so grievously once. Her heart throbbed with joy to feel that this was so; the sunshine deepened round her path day by day. Just a little patience – just a little time to show him that the old distrust and insubordination were over, and he would give to her – she felt sure of it now – the love she prized above all else on earth.
Monica’s face might be pale and grave in these days, yet it wore an added sweetness as each passed by, for her heart was full of strange new joy. She loved her husband – he loved her – their hearts were all but united.